“You and your brothers can visit anytime you want. I’m planning to move back in with my mama and daddy until I find a new house. You can always find out where to find me by checking with the folks who work at the store.”

“Okay, Miss Joyce. I’m glad I seen you today. Do you want to come in and say something to Aunt Nadine and Uncle Sherman before we leave?”

I glanced at the house next door. It was the last place I ever wanted to set foot in again. I didn’t think I could handle seeing the scene of the crime. “Uh, not right now. I’m sure they want to get things sorted out and get up out of Branson as fast as they can.”

“Okay.” Cherie gave me a big hug and kissed my cheek. And then she was gone. Just like her mama.

CHAPTER 45 - JOYCE

CHAPTER 45

JOYCE

THE DOUBLE FUNERAL YVONNE’S AND MILTON’S RELATIVES HAD arranged for them at the church they belonged to, was the Tuesday after the murders. Odell’s was scheduled for Wednesday at our church. I couldn’t bring myself to go pay my last respects to Yvonne and Milton, because I was still too overwhelmed with grief.

Buddy and Sadie went, though. They were so nosy they attended funerals for folks they didn’t even know, just so they could have something new to talk about. After they left the church, they came to my parents’ house while I was alone. The minute they entered the living room, they started bragging about how they had arrived at the church before anybody else and had gotten prime seats close to the caskets.

After mumbling a few complaints about the weather and their health, they removed their coats and plopped down on the couch. I eased down into the wing chair facing them. Buddy didn’t waste any time getting the conversation started. “I declare, that was the dullest, no-frills double-funeral I ever been to. I guess Yvonne and Milton was not as well liked as folks thought. Right, Sadie?” He looked like a grizzly bear in his dark brown suit.

“Sure enough,” Sadie agreed, bobbing her head. She had on the same plain cotton black dress she’d worn to the last three funerals. “There wasn’t enough flowers to make a bouquet, the choir sung only two songs, and a few folks didn’t even show up until the closing remarks. Aunt Mattie and all of them floozies that work for her was there, dressed like harlots, crying like babies. A few bootleggers that had axes to grind with Yvonne and Milton showed up.”

“Humph. Them bootleggers probably came just to make sure their competition is dead,” Buddy commented. “Now they’ll get back all the customers Yvonne and Milton had wooed away from them.”